


I am one with the Force, the Force is Ar-Amu

by GraceEliz



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Amatakka, Canon has been taken out back and electrified, Canonical Character Death, Eldritch, F/M, Force Dyad (Star Wars), Gen, Grandpa Dooku, Mando'a, Mortis (Star Wars), Tatooine Slave Culture, The Force, he loves his grandsons but Ani irritates him
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:14:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 7,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24111892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GraceEliz/pseuds/GraceEliz
Summary: I tell you this story to save your life:Once, a long long time ago, the Force built for itself a child. This child would bring a reckoning to Depur. He would be the slave that made free, the one to bring the rain, Anakin Ekkreth.There was also the Light, the Shadow, the Mist and the Darkness.I tell you this story to save your life: the Fall of the Order and Light into the chaos of unmediated Dark.
Relationships: Dooku & Obi-Wan Kenobi, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker & Quinlan Vos, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Quinlan Vos
Comments: 39
Kudos: 186
Collections: The_Newbie's Star Wars Fanfic





	1. The One Who Brings the Rain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [loosingletters](https://archiveofourown.org/users/loosingletters/gifts), [Fialleril](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fialleril/gifts), [Blue_Sunshine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blue_Sunshine/gifts).



> For Eli, and Fialleril, with all my gratitude to Blue.

I tell you this story to save your life:  
Once, a long long time ago, the Force built for itself a child. This child would bring a reckoning to Depur. He would be the slave that made free, the one to bring the rain, Anakin Ekkreth.

But before the Force brought this child to birth, it blessed two boys: one to be the Light, and one to be the Dark Shadows, and they would be a dyad pair to bring the balance. The Shadow was found by the Order, and the Light by a Count, who carried the boy to the Order for safe-keeping. He shone so bright the Count was unable to Fall in the way the Sith intended. From his very birth the Light shone bright enough to boil the oily clinging Dark to stardust.

The Shadow walked in the murk, finding secrets, bringing them to the Light to be burned into Truth.  
The Force intended the child of Ar-Amu to be with them, a balancing, a reckoning. 

The Jedi Order did not.

The Force also brought a Darkness, and the Murk – two girls, who would never be dyad or even friends as the Light and Shadow, but who nevertheless were bound together. The Darkness was a slave, a child of Ar-Amu, who lost all faith because she was abandoned by those who claimed to want Depur ruined. 

I tell you this story to save your life: the Fall of the Order and Light into the chaos of unmediated Dark.

When the blinding Force presence that is Anakin Skywalker smiles, the three moons of Tattooine smile with him. When the Boy Who Will Bring the Rain smiles, Ar-Amu smiles through him, and her teeth are krayt-sharp. He raises his arms to the three moons Ekkreth retrieved for them and prays that the Amavikka be safe, what little water there is in the atmosphere seeming drawn down to his tiny hands to hang over him in seven sparkling baubles. Little Ani, regardless of his impossibility, of his favour from the Mother, is still a slave to the Hutts, with an implant sunk into his skin, an electrical bomb tucked deep between his growing organs. Ekkreth, the Slave Who Makes Free, seems to be particularly fond of this child: it is Ani who locates transmitters, Ani who fools overseers into leaving the slaves alone, Ani who hides those who need hiding, Ani who can use his power to hunt down evil in the blood and eradicate it. Nine years the boy lives a slave in the slave quarters. Nine long years his future Master-Teacher awakes in the night longing for another bond to rival the strength of his bond with Quin. 

Anakin feels it on his blood when the Jedi land on Tattooine. This is the year he leaves, Ar-Amu tells him, the year he wins the Boonta Eve Podrace, the year it all changes. He will be back. After all, he is the Skywalker, is he not? No more Skywalkers will ever be born slaves. This he swears. The Force (the thing he as yet has no name for but that he knows is as much a part of him as the Amavikka) echoes with the truth of it. His brother Kitster laughs with him like rain on rooftops at his claim and hands him the next screwdriver to tighten the base panel of the racer.

Ar-Amu has given him the sense of electronics, of electricity (in machines and droids and ships and brains and the sky and he is always surrounded by thrumming impulses of life and it is almost as beautiful as rain). Life is sparks and water; life is beautiful. 

The Jedi tells him of midichlorians in the blood, of the Force being an energy in all beings, that he is blessed by it – and he does not understand, when Anakin sharply informs him that it is also the Mother’s blessing, but he is not Depur (no, this gentle mountainous man is many things, not all of them good, but he is no Depur) so there is no negative response from him. He brought with him an angel, and no man who walks with such an angel could possibly bring evil, could he? 

Unfortunately, the angel is a free-born, and she does not understand why he insists that he has a name and is a person – he’d like to introduce her to Kitster, and when he takes her and the Jedi and the strange leggy creature back to his home she shows time and again a free-born arrogance (enough to match his own, Kitster informs him snidely) in her reactions. Still. He adores her. She is not like him, blessed, not even one of Ar-Amu’s children, but he adores her for what she represents: the stars, Unfettered. 

(Obi-Wan can feel that the third person he and Quin have searched for is coming; he yanks his dyad-brother into the Queen’s ship to tell him so, waves his hands enthusiastically out over the seeming-endless dunes, lets his Light burnburnburn the darkness lying in wait. Maybe he secretly deactivates as many slave chips as he can feel whilst he does, maybe he prays to the Force and Ar-Amu for water to make itself found – neither he nor Quin will ever tell, so nobody except their future-third-piece of soul will know. A baby brother, Obi-Wan muses, their baby brother who is to bring the Balancing.)


	2. Boy, Sixteen, and Brother, Thirteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Obi-Wan’s first truly concrete memory is of Quinlan. He remembers shadows and safety, a comforting darkness like that of sleep cooing gently in the side of his mind, the black-orange-red of his bond-brother curled against him as they slept together like loth-kittens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quin is my favourite I love him so much and it is entirely BlueSunshine's fault go read the Desert Storm series it is beautiful.  
> Is the dyad influenced by that? Yes.

The undercity knows them now, the two near-human boys (one more human than the other, but who dares comment when his brother stalks the night like he owns it?) who can have an entire conversation in a tilt of the chin and snide smile, who finish each other’s thoughts. Slave-children, some whisper; future Master Jedi say others; soldiers growing whisper a very few. Maybe all are right, maybe none are. Who can say? Quinlan navigates the shadowed streets with the confidence of a veteran warrior, his bond-brother’s hand in held tight in his.

Quinlan Vos has always walked in the shadowed corners of the Temples, and even when he stands beside the Temple’s beloved Light-child Obi-Wan the darkness puddles by his robes. After all, says his sharp grin and the mischief in his eyes, what is Light without Shadow to make you see it? He knows himself and his faults far better than some Masters do even at the tender age of 16. His best friend spent time a slave, his best friend was almost stolen by the Dark, his best friend was taken from him by the very Jedi who raised them; his best friend and he are whispered to share a mind. You’ll never get a true answer – at least, you won’t get one and live to tell it.

The beacon of light in the creche drew him in like a moth to a flame – as indeed he is – and he’s never once wanted to leave the hot glow of Obi’s mind. Why should he return to the cold emptiness of a mind unshared? He is not going to be lonely ever again and neither will this slightly younger boy, not for a single minute. The shadows pool around Quin with the same quiet awe with which he regards Obi. Temple mind-healers have tried to separate them; Master Jedi have shared meditation with them to try separate their Force Signatures; even the Grand-Master Yoda cannot come to any conclusion other than that this is how they belong. 

Obi-Wan’s first truly concrete memory is of Quinlan. He remembers shadows and safety, a comforting darkness like that of sleep cooing gently in the side of his mind, the black-orange-red of his bond-brother curled against him as they slept together like loth-kittens. Their bond snapped into place as soon as Quin laid eyes on the little Stewjoni toddler, all bright blue eyes and the hint of reddish hair, Light-Light-Light in the Force. Master Dooku had found him when investigating a major Stewjoni port for slave-running on behalf of Serenno – Dooku was many things, and a good leader was one of those. He sometimes (more than sometimes) visited the crèche to see the boy he’d rescued and his age-mate. Their combined Signatures felt like balance, washing away the stain of the Sith on his soul, and Obi-Wan didn’t fully understand this, but did he need to when his heart sand with the rightness of it? He cast Light in much the way Quin could cast a shadow: truth, weaponised.

When the boys were five years old, Obi-Wan earned himself the title Negotiator from the creche-master who witnessed him settle a violent argument between two much older Initiates: he’d had Quinlan walk through the shadows to hear the secrets, and burned-burned-burned falsities and embellishments away with his Light until he saw the bones of the matter, and chose the right words to get what he wanted (and it is a good thing, the creche-master told Dooku on his next visit, that young Kenobi’s goals are very much aligned with what is best for the galaxy). His Grandfather Dooku quizzed him on his methods, praised his meditation – praised so that Obi-Wan flushed pink and hid his face against his dyad-brother’s dark robes. 

Dooku took on the role of quiet grandfather to the dyad-boys, sneaking them off for ice-cream and treats and theatre and secret lessons on Serenno culture – the thought of leaving had played over him for months before Obi-Wan’s arrival. If the boys needed him to take them away, he would do it in less than a heartbeat. After all, where else would he find a shadow with a mortal heart and a boy who bled Light into the universe in every giggle? The shadows spilled from Quin like puddling oil in his footsteps, burned into sizzling sparks of pure Force by Obi-Wan's dancing Light, a beautiful ballet tableau only a blessed few were fortunate enough to be able to see. One day he will take them to his home-planet to play in his gardens there, to run in the city, to dance their invisible ballet free as loth-cats and soaring birds and leave the fizzing marks of their joy in the Force. With them, he feels more like Yan, and less like a scorned once-Jedi Sith apprentice.

Truthfully, he does not want the Sith. He merely needs enough strength to keep his world free from slaves. On his softer days, when the dance of the Force’s balanced blessed ones casts nothing but wonder into his aching old heart, he wonders that he does not return to the Order wholly – and then someone protests his name of Grandfather, or forces Quin to leave his brother behind, or grows afraid of the dyad, and he knows why he couldn’t stay. They would bleed the love out of their children.

What is life, Dooku wonders as his grandsons sleep in his arms on the train back to the Temple, without love?


	3. Aliit ori'shya tal'din

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Family is more than bloodline.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to open a Mando’a dictionary.

Clones, they are told, are not individual souls: they are merely faces on bodies trained to fight and die for whoever has paid to be their commanders. Some of their Jedi leaders are callous, some are kind, and a very few are once-slaves who seem to understand them. They are individuals in the Force, they are told, and they are allowed to show that. They take names, and cut their hair, and paint their beskar’gam, and learn and sing and draw and write and spar, and some find that they are friendly, and some want to be buir, and some of them must be towed forcibly out of libraries, and some have to do extra drills because they love to eat as many new flavours as they can find. Obi-Wan Kenobi treats them like people. His best friend is unlike any other Jetiise in the universe – as Quinlan exultantly attests, curled around their General like a loth-cat. He is fiercely attached to his friend, and his friend’s late Padawan, and the man he fondly calls Grandfather. 

The 501st and the 212th are given to Kenobi-and-Skywalker, who between the two speak such a range of languages that extends to Mando’a and Amatakka. Clones as a whole do not speak Amatakka; they have not been in contact with enough slave peoples to have learned more of than that there are people who would help them, a symbol they can draw, words they can speak, how to give their names in Amatakka. With their Generals leading them, hurting for them, protecting them, they do not feel like slaves (and their Generals rioted against the Council to have the clones seen as individuals, as Mando’ade) or chattel or disposables.

They are akaan’ade, and more importantly they are vod’e, they are Mando’ade, but most importantly of all they are taught that they are people and their names are Wolffe Cody Hawk Rex Fives Heavy Fox Waxer Bly Jesse Boil Appo Kano Boomer Kix.

Anakin – General Skywalker – teaches them Amatakka and snippets of the culture of the Amavikka, tells stories of Ar-Amu and Leia and Lukka and Ekkreth and Depur and no-chain-is-unbreakable and you-are-a-person. In return, the clones teach him of Mandalore. His gift from Ar-Amu, from the Force, is for electricity. It is Anakin Ekkreth who finds the chip in Kix’s head, too concussed to stay in his own brain, his Signature spilling out in a spiral of light and dark and balance – Obi-Wan’s skin glows, Quinlan’s shadows roil like laughing wraiths, little sister Ashoka fades laughing through the mists – and the electrical impulses in brains near the Force’s Balance fire faster than ever, until they don’t, because the chip is in their brains and unlike Anakin and Obi-Wan it is active. 

The son of the Force wakes screaming in horrible understanding, teeth sharp as Leia the Elder Sister’s, darkness unfurling from his spine like tattered wings (or a cloak), light streaming from his eyes and his veins shining through his skin. He is an abomination. With a single stray thought, loss of temper, moment of grief, he could kill every one of the brothers in his vicinity, because they have slave chips in their brains to control them, and they cannot escape his power – dukkra ba dukkra. Rex and Cody smile grimly: the three great bastions of the Force are infuriated, blindingly bright, terrifyingly dark, a trifecta of terrible power.

The Clones start to mark themselves Unfettered as they are freed by their Generals and associates, tattoo the symbol onto their skin in invisible places, marked on their inner beskar’gam, drawn in blood and ink and paint. Free. Three circles for three suns – three Force-Blest – surrounded by the broken circle of seven pieces. Free.

Perhaps Slick’s betrayal would have ached less, had he not betrayed their new second culture. Dukkra ba dukkra means freedom or death, freedom in death, death is freedom. He would have damned them all for the chance to make a statement – and that is not the way of the Mando’ade or the Amavikka or the Jettiise.


	4. One more Windu pun and Vos leaves via a window, Padawans.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mace. Mace why do you have the longest chapter. Mace you've hijacked my fic. Mace.  
> Also, he's the only character who actually speaks. Go Mace.

If bright young Kenobi is a near-blinding beacon of Light in the Force, then Vos is the utter blackness of the Temple library at four in the morning. Nobody can be in there, because Madame Nu, the Grandmother, sleeps, and she has thrown them all out to their own beds. Nobody is in the shadows, because it is impossible, except for the people for whom it is not. Compared to these two everyone barring the greatest Masters is a stumbling child.

Compared to Anakin Skywalker they are none of them more than a mouse or a butterfly or a patch of moss clinging to the Temple Garden’s cobbles. He grows in the Force and in himself and in his arrogance and love and anger and frustration and justified outrage. Should they wish to, the three of them could destroy planets: as a Jedi Council member, sworn to protect, to serve, to prevent, he cannot allow this possibility to grow. Fractures cling to Skywalker and Kenobi and Vos like younglings to Master Yoda, leaving him wincing in their wake as his brain struggles to reorient – the Force has plans for those three, huge and great and terrible and wonderful plans.

If Vos and Kenobi are one mind in two shades, then Kenobi and Skywalker are two halves of one warrior, bonded so closely they are perfectly synchronised even from a galaxy apart.

If these three are a migraine, he rather thinks they will kill him when they find their two missing pieces (Mist and Darkness, whispers the Force). Little Tano’s bond snaps into place the day she turns five – more than spider-fine gossamer, barely detected, unnoticed by Skywalker-Kenobi-Vos under the weight of their own vibrant Signatures. Mace is not accustomed to fear of the future. 

Down in the Senior Padawan Training Salles, Vos is attempting to teach Skywalker how to shadow-travel and if it weren’t such a vital skill he would be putting a strict stop to it immediately for the sake of his remaining nerves. With every passing day the universe repaints its future in a sickening kaleidoscope of fractures not lived, spiralling out from the three boys tumbling on the mats. Some days, Mace couldn’t even bring himself to stay in the Temple with them.   
“You’re improving in leaps and bounds, young Initiate,” he calls. Sharp teeth glint like bone knives in the dimmed light, reflecting oddly in a way Mace takes a moment to realise is caused by Kenobi. The Initiate in question leaps to his feet.

Vos drawls, “I’ve been teaching them to shadow-travel.”  
“I see that,” he replies. 

“No,” says Kenobi from behind him, casting Mace’s shadow out it a long streak as if it is reaching to Vos, “You didn’t, and that is rather the point, is it not?” Mace whirls in repressed alarm, knowing his reaction is vital – they are at a shatterpoint – he can save the world or damn it to hell – his words his words – 

“Very impressive, young ones,” he croaks out, allowing himself to take Vos’ offered arm in support as he sinks down cross-legged, hand to his eyes, “Even if I am half-blinded by your tendencies to leave shatterpoints and fractures in your wake.”

Skywalker hurries to him, hands pressing intently to his temples, and the waves of nausea abate, replaced by Skywalker’s particular Signature wrapping around the perimeter of Mace’s own like a blanket – it must have been learned when he was a slave. He fixes his dark eyes on bright desert-sky blue. “I owe you all three an apology. I am sorry, young ones, for being distant when what you most need is support. You are all three of you Blessed and special and it is a burden, I know, and I was afraid of you.” Mace looks over to Vos. “I will teach you the Dark things I know,” then to Kenobi, “I will help you in whatever you need me to, prescience, visions, your peculiar ability to use the Light side of the Force to burn – a very Dark side talent.” The three young ones glance at each other, betraying little of their emotions. Mace waits. 

“We accept your apology, Master,” says Kenobi finally, “Thank you.”

Around them, the Force settles; change has been wraught, change for the better. 

Anakin breaks the settled silence, shifting to sit in Obi-Wan’s lap, legs hooked over Mace’s knees in what is a very clear display of affection-trust. “Why is your lightsaber purple?”

“Anakin! You can’t just ask people that,” hisses Obi-Wan, ever the diplomatic one, “it is so, so rude!”  
“No, no, calm,” soothes Mace, “It’s alright. It is purple because it is a bled crystal. What colour comes from red and blue?”

“Purple,” answers Ani. 

“Indeed. I was once a blue-bladed Jedi, but I Fell – for reasons I will not share with you. When I returned to my senses, I had to bleed my crystal, which is horribly unsafe, and agonising. It settled like this. Purple. Half-way. That is why I fight with Darksider forms.”

Anakin is silent. Mace knows the fractures echo around him for a reason – he has heard some of Obi-Wan’s nightmares of what the future holds for them – it is vital, ultimate, essential, that Anakin takes to heart a Fall is not the End, not death, because if he does not Mace rather thinks they are all doomed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The shatterpoint here is that without support, Quin would have become gradually more disillusioned until he left. Mace avoids this but has he fully avoided the future?


	5. Balancers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Force loves balance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have an Ashoka chapter almost ready - tonight or tomorrow morning - and that's the last of my written chapters. Let me know if you want more, and hit up my tumblr @graaaaceeliz with questions or prompts or whatever or leave comments!

The Force adores balance. There is the Blesssed Child of Ar-Amu who would bring the Reckoning, and the Light and the Shadow. The Force also raises up a Darkness and a Mist. The Mist it gave to Ekkreth to train, to teach, to love and learn patience and humility with and from. She was a warrior, a born hunter, so perfect a gymnast that the Mist she was named for seemed to embrace her. Ashoka Tano never got lost in the murk; never stumbled on her path; grew up an Order’s-child with a very clear idea of where she’d land. She was the Murk, the pair for the Shadow – short of a dyad-bond, but her teacher-bond with the Chosen One burned bright between them, swirling in all the myriad shades of the Force itself.

The Darkness grew into a woman lost on a far-off planet, a slave-child saved by a Jedi who loved too hard and felt too abandoned to drift back to where her beloved father-Master-teacher called his home. But that mattered not: the Light, her counter, fought easily as well as she did, and even the Chosen One born of Ar-Amu fell to the wayside (as well he should, for no child of Ar-Amu should bring harm on another. She is disgusted when the clone named Slick accepts her bribe. To betray one’s brothers is worse than the betrayal of other Amavikka) when they clashed, terms of possessive endearment snarling down from their lips, darling and dear and my sweet and sweetheart and beloved. It is peculiar – the Jedi of the Order will not understand, not a jot, but she was trained by her Light’s fallen Grandfather, and she knows he means them as much as she does. Without each other, they are unfinished. (She has no dyad as he does, but when she sees the young Togruta scramble desperately to save clones who she has been encouraged by those who raised her to see as nothing, her heart clenches – she would have liked a daughter, before she Fell).

Sometimes, against all her better thoughts, Asajj Ventress pities the Mist of the Force, for she is lesser – still vital, but lesser – than the three men she has found family with. Quinlan and herself have had many run-ins, and Asajj has yet to lose, but Quin never loses by much. No, they are far too similar for that. Shadow is only one step removed from her, after all. Where Ashoka is Light rising in the morning, Quinlan is the evening shadows descending.

She adores her Light, but it burns.

(He adores her, but if he were to stay he would dim and she would fade, and the Force needs them as they are, yet. One day the balance will be here, and they will crash together, a supernova. She will be able to see past the oiliness of the Sith with new clear eyes, will be able to see him properly beyond his blinding glaring Lightness.)

Asajj sits in the rubble of her latest victory, thinking. The Force-blessed child has grown into an impulsive and powerful man, too impulsive. Glancing about to ensure no Force-sensitives remain nearby, she assents to the will of the Force, sinking into a superficial meditative trance. Her Master plucks at their bond inquisitively – never has Asajj been much of a one to meditate, unwilling to have the Sith-Infected Dark swell in her soul, oilier than ever before with every passing day. The great Sith Lord Sidious is a poison. She wants him destroyed. (Her Light will offer mercy, the Shadow will seek to offer it, the Mist will lean to retribution. The Chosen One, well, he will tear Depur down into shreds.) It is funny, she muses to him as the Force dances about her, that the Chosen One’s arrogance rivals her own when his Master-teacher has the least ego of any man Asajj has ever met; how he can be so harsh when he was raised a slave; most worrying yet least surprising of all that none of the so-called Peacekeepers have cared to take him aside for sessions with the Mind Healers. Even she knows he needs them.

What has happened, she asks Dooku, in the intervening years since you left them for their treatment of Quin?  
I do not know, he answers her, concern for his grandsons and grandsons’ family apparent, I do not and I am deeply worried; perhaps I left them too soon.

No, thinks Asajj behind her shields, the Force roiling like a boiling pot about her, no, if you had stayed so close to the Order any longer it would have killed you from the inside-out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah Asajj is rightly concerned maybe I need a Dooku dedicated chapter....


	6. Mist and Murk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ashoka is the Mist and the Murk and the predators that use them to hunt - her teeth glint in dim light, and maybe she is impulsive, but she is a huntress.

All her life she has been different to her age-mates, a little more inclined to bite, a little more visceral in her instincts, a little or a lot more brutal in her sabre-work; Darkness has always been closer to her. Togrutas live for the thrill of the hunt, trilling out messages to each other through their montrals, using all their keen hunter’s senses to have fun in mock-hunts. Ashoka gathers her ‘gruta age-mates for play hunts, seeking out Masters, older Padawans, even Quinlan Vos who comes to play with the little ones when he needs peace and Obi-Wan Kenobi who is good practice because he hides himself in the Force to make them truly hunt him, and Anakin Skywalker who is like a lighthouse and plays with them by hiding in the most fun places. She hones her skills, tracking and scenting and using the Force, but she is still so so impulsive her tutors tell her. Too fast to act, too slow to think, not enough reliance on the Force yet too much reliance on her blade. 

She is Mist and wreaths her path through the Temple grounds as intangibly as she can, avoiding attention, using all her skill. She is the Murk, clouding her Force Signature by teasing tendrils of Dark and Light to obscure its edges. 

When she is twelve years old, war breaks out, a war that has been building for decades. Hundreds of her friends – her family – are slaughtered by Seppies on Geonosis. She knows this, not because the Force sobs or her Masters tell her, but because Master Obi-Wan’s Light is dimmed, and Master Quin sprints to meet him even before the ship lands at the Temple. Deep down in her heart she knows she is supposed to be with them, so over she sneaks, pushing her Light (she is mostly Light) out to them tentatively, surprised when they reach back to her, grieving and wanting her to be with them because she is theirs. 

Everyone who cares to observe knows Quin and Obi-Wan have a dyad bond, have a strong Force given bond to Anakin Skywalker. They are different to most Jedi in a way the young Togruta can’t really express. Oh, Obi-Wan is a model of intent to be a good Jedi, and Quin is an icon amongst those who favour the principle of knowing oneself, and Anakin is inconceivably strong. 

Yet. 

Ashoka draws near them, allowing herself to be pulled into the hug, feeling something from Quinlan shrouding her and something from Obi-Wan blinding those who dare to look for her. Quin is a perfect swirl of balanced Light to Dark, his emotions streaming out of him in a most disorienting manner, an exploding star; it takes her all of a dizzying minute to realise he does this deliberately, that Quin has a truly unique gift to lose himself in the Force yet not be lost, because he knows himself and oh it is a thing of beauty.   
Whilst she gasps in awe, Quinlan sneaks them through the shadows of his Temple into the room complex he and his Master Tholme occupy. He just smiles when she shrieks and demands him teach her – it isn’t a thing that can be taught. This gift is his, not anyone else’s. 

Obi-Wan is much more restrained, almost confined, channelling his outbursts into blinding Light in the Force, stunning anyone who dares to look deeper – but he is lonely, thinks Ashoka with a startle pulling back to put her little hands on his face and truly look, he is bruised and hiding behind his burning Light. He is a star, and she is a shroud. He cries, tears trickling down into his careful beard, when she carefully guides the mists of her gift around him, a cover, to let him grieve in peace, without releasing what would be a catatonia-inducing wave of agony into the Force. 

This is her place, to guide the shadows which let Quinlan walk wherever he so pleases, so that he can seek out the secrets to keep them safe, so that Obi-Wan can burnburnburn them into Truth, so that Anakin can use it to destroy the Sith corrupting the Dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More?


	7. Occurrences

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no self control huh. There's a Dooku chapter in the works.

It is desperation that reveals the battle use of Ar-Amu’s gift to him, a helpless gasping terror that he is too slow, too inefficient, too weak, to reach his Light and Mist and battalion in time. Hurled into a corner, he reaches out with a scream, feeling the droids’ electrical pulses giving them life and crushes like he would a windpipe. In sickening unity the droids buckle to the ground, leaving the clones and Obi-Wan and Snips warily clustered, gasping,

(droids are people too, but it is far easier to allow himself not to think of that, because if he does, he must face that he is losing himself – he is keekta-du – he has tortured and killed mercilessly and caused the sparks to go out with his own hands).

His Master-teacher-brother and Padawan-learner-sister run to him, wrapping him in their love, Light and Dark in fluid balance. The Clones approach, ringing them, blocking Anakin’s view of the swathe of fallen droids. His gasps echo loudly in the eery silence. When he lifts his hands from the ground, inky Dark drops from his fingers to disappear under Obi-Wan’s burning Light, and he shakes like a child under Snips’ hand on his shoulder. Ever the wise child, Ashoka winds the Force around him to protect him – but he can’t reach out to tell her he’ll be okay, because if he does he will feel it, feel the weight of his sin in thousands of little nothings where there should be a spark of life. 

Satine is holding the gun to her advisor, Obi-Wan hesitating to strike because he is good and strong and loyal and killing hurts his soul in a way Anakin can’t really understand because they are in that fundamentally different, so when he hears the sneer that killing would make them hypocrites he strikes – after all, he is above the Jedi, is he not? Born of the Force itself, designed to be the perfect balance, and he’s just had to destroy some assassin-bots and he’s greatly annoyed.

The spark of life in the man flickers out at the same time as his lightsaber, and Obi-Wan’s Force Signature scalds the darkness out of the air, stinging, but Ani doesn’t care about the sting it causes. For his family he would do anything. He is the best because he has to be and they are not permitted to judge him for it. Arrogant, he’s been called, but is it arrogance if he’s in the right? He is the most powerful Force user at large, and he is doing what he has to. 

On their way back to the meeting-room he tightens his shields, just in case. Obi-Wan looks over at him in curiosity for just the briefest moment, concern-interest-apology through their bond. It is no consequence, Obi, he answers, eyes to the front, worry not. I always worry responds his brother-father-mentor. 

The bomb destroys electrics by overpowering them – it is like a Tattooine storm, like the coming of the Mother, and the droids fall in crackling ripples. He feels the electricity ripple down his arm like water, leaving his fingers twitchy. In his own defense he has long since locked everyone else out of his mind except a very special few, which includes his Mist and Light and Shadow. He does not like the Dark, or his Master’s grandfather Dooku (why should he? The man captured Obi-Wan and tried to take he and Quin from him) or the strange taste the Clones leave on his teeth or the migraines Mace gets. Strange Master Windu is very much his own man, closed off, seemingly allergic to attachment, but he is a good man and more balanced in the Force than most people Anakin has encountered, and he feels like maybe he could learn from him, but he won’t. He will not. To do so would be to open himself up and accept his wrongs and that – he would die. 

There is a dragon under the ground. A zillobeast, they call it, and whilst the cruel part of him wants it dead for it daring to harm his people the rest of him wants to yell and rail against any harm coming to it, because he would never dare lay a finger on Leia the Elder Sister, and this creature is much like her. It screams and snarls and refuses to die, the strength of its life-force almost stunning, as it breaks every chain they lay against it. Unfettered, he calls it respectfully as he backflips over its head. 

They send it to sleep, to Coruscant, where it will be safe – humanely studied to help the clones have better protective armour.

Ani oh Ani, says Master Windu through their delicate bond, don’t you know that people in lab coats mean nothing but trouble and pain?

Chancellor Palpatine promised he’d keep it safe; Anakin could check but to open his shields that much to listen would open him to pain. For his own safety he’s been locked away since the start of the war, they all have, all the Jedi trying to keep sane and safe.  
Obi-Wan burns. Mace roils dark and light, striding the edge with Vapaad. Quin slides from shadow to shadow more dark than light these days.

He doesn’t bother looking to Asajj. She infuriates him, always flirting with Obi-Wan to distract and harm him, always getting in his way and he wants to hunt her down, wants her and Aurra and all the Seppies but most especially Grievous and Dooku to pay in bloody agony for their crimes. Not the Jedi way but Anakin is child of Ar-Amu, child of the Force, more than anyone else in the galaxy even Obi-Wan (nobody will ever be like them, not another person ever) and he is a living shatterpoint: he makes his own path.

On Coruscant, the beast escapes, causes havoc; the Chancellor is so saddened, so distressed, so nothing-special-in-the-Force, that Anakin doesn’t question any decisions made until he and Yoda and Master Windu are holding the cloud of poison back from Padmé and the Chancellor. The beast screams in pain. The light, it’s bright life-spark that burned like the twin suns of Tattooine, flickers dull to bright in dizzying trauma, until finally it explodes like a flash-bomb, momentarily stunning Anakin, sending his Signature spiralling out, and he remembers why he shields so much of his innate talent.

Death hurts.

(if he listened to the Force more, opened himself in meditation more, allowed himself to be guided past the fault he knows he has of arrogance, then maybe he would be able to prevent all this pain. Perhaps the darkness wouldn’t trace his hands with slick oily fingers.)

(perhaps he would see that out of Asajj, Dooku, and their powerful friend the Chancellor, the only one rotten entirely through with greasy Sith oil-dark is the one who pretends he wants an end to war)


	8. Grandfather

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally got this done! Next up: Mortis.

When Obi-Wan is thirteen, he is finally chosen to be a Padawan. This is a most momentous occasion, not least because it is his old Padawan Qui-Gon who takes the boy on – which, to tell the whole truth, is not what Yan had entirely wanted for his grandson. Qui-Gon is many things and he is not cruel but he is on occasion thoughtless. Still, however, Yan and Quin watch very carefully over the budding friendship. For a time both Jedi appear to be doing well. They regularly meet with Yan, Quin and Quin’s kind and loving Master Tholme at Dex’s in the city, where Quin and Obi-Wan are perhaps too well known for their grandfather’s aging comfort. In his home on Serenno, presiding over his people, he knows he’s darker than a Jedi should be, but he hasn’t Fallen, even if he is no longer an active part of the Order – he lightens when he is here in this first home, where his own Master resides still. 

None of the little botherations of a new pairing cause a problem, not even when Obi-Wan’s abilities lead to arguments, until Qui-Gon leaves Yan’s precious boy in the midst of a civil war. He collects Quin, and Tholme who has also come to love the dyad boys, out on a rescue mission. For three days out to the distant planet he worries himself sick; barely eats, hardly sleeps, does little but immerse himself into the Force deeply enough to send comfort to his grandson, comfort and the sense of I am coming, my love, stay alive and I will save you. For Quinlan’s sake he doesn’t Fall.

For their sakes, he doesn’t allow himself the bitter seduction of a Fall.

Not until they reach the planet and Obi-Wan is taken, stolen, enslaved, and he has been for weeks. Yan is more formidable than he appears, always, so he uses his name as Count of Serenno to get an audience with the man who has his boy under his thumb, and only face to face with the monster does he allow himself to Fall into his infuriated agony with as much ease as he fell into loving his grandsons.

Sick dark leaves him empty, hollow, sick with grief and guilt until he catches Quin’s hard gaze and lets his love for his family burn through him. Regret for not having acted sooner; rage at this slaver; guilt at allowing Qui-Gon to have charge of his grandson; near overwhelming terror for the aftermath on his already fragile Obi-Wan. No mercy, no pity, none of the kinder emotions Obi so embodies have a place in this – slaughter. To call it a fight would be to imply some semblance of a fair match. 

“Quinlan, collect your brother,” he orders when his blade is against the monster’s throat, and blood stains the showy marble, “We will allow him to grant mercy, if he pleases.”

“Favore,” whimpers the man, “Let me free.”

Yan raises an eyebrow. “Not of this planet.” He steps back – this scum is not worthy of his attention. “Tholme, have our boys arrived back yet?”

“We have,” snarls Quinlan. Obi, so small still, sweet little Light Obi-Wan, is bruised – he limps, his breath rattles, his eyes are fever-bright and the Darkness Quinlan uses as a weapon roils around Dooku, screaming vengeance hurt damage kill make-him-suffer. Even so, even hurting, the Light burns the oiliness leading to Sith into mist. The cretin who dared collar his own dear one chokes off a terrified sound at the sensation of crackling reality. Would these two, if they so chose, be able to break the boundaries of life and death and past and future?

“My grandson,” he croons sadly, gently, “What would you have me do?”

Red hair and still-blue eyes. Grief and pain. Pity.   
Mercy. 

“Mercy, my grandfather – from a certain point of view.”

Yan and Quinlan smile, sharp teeth and harsh smile-wrinkles. From a certain point of view? So be it. The man will be in pain, crippled, the rest of his life. These unfortunate events, Tholme will report, occurred under Dooku’s hands whilst the others were occupied outside with Obi-Wan – such a shame, no? Too bad Dooku left the Order so soon beforehand, too soon for the report to have been wholly processed, too bad he’s outside their jurisdiction. 

Too bad, muses Tholme as Quinlan uses the Dark he travels through and reaches into the slaver, doing who knew what to the man’s innards, leaving a shivering wreck for Dooku to wreak revenge upon. He turns away from the grisly scene, focussing his attention on the boy curled on the floor cradled in his strong arms. Where his shadow should be, it is not. By contrast, Quinlan has all number of shadows dancing around his feet, climbing his robes, seeming to stretch out in claws towards his prey. 

He turns away. One celestial being at a time is already too many. 

“I am sorry to have pulled you into this, Tholme, my friend,” Dooku says quietly as they watch their sleeping boys. Poor Obi-Wan is bruised and damaged but unbroken by some miraculous intervention, and they’ve healed him as best they can but field medicine is nothing near the level of care in a real hospital, let alone the Temple itself. Even at full speed they will need three days. 

“I am honoured you allowed my presence,” he answers easily, letting his gratitude for being able to help into the Force for his friend to sense. The two men share a smile, a smile speaking of grief and pain and the need to protect and disillusionment. “It is my hope you are not punished too badly.”

Yan shrugs elegantly. “I can always backdate my resignation.” Yes, Tholme laughs, that would be exactly like Dooku. Not one to get his own hands dirty unless a very small number of people are involved, and not one to allow a deed to be simply discovered. 

_Coruscant Temple Council Records PRIVATE  
Subject: DOOKU, Yan   
Rank: MASTER   
Reason for Resignation (select the one/ones which best apply to your situation):  
LOSS OF FAITH IN THE ORDER  
PERSONAL REASONS including attachment, other priorities, prior commitments to planet of birth. _

_Please give a statement expanding your answer:  
You allowed my Padawan and his Padawans to suffer, and did not take action when it was needed. When my home planet required my immediate attention you were unwilling to allow me to give it, despite having shown myself to be faithful to the Force and the Order’s teachings. Unfortunately, I have lost my absolute confidence in the Order as a whole, due to your treatment of my grandsons and your refusal to allow Jedi to form attachments of any sort. It is my firm belief that the galaxy would be far better served if Younglings were raised to understand connecting with other beings is not a fault in itself, but that attachment and obsession is.   
You have failed to teach this. _

_EDIT/ADDITION: The final straw on the proverbial camellion’s back is that when Master Jinn abandoned Padawan Kenobi to a warring planet, resulting in said child’s enslavement, the Council did nothing. Do not dare to label this a sign of attachment: I would go to hell for my boys, but I would do so for any child in such a situation. I am ASHAMED to be associated with you.  
Dare we continue to call ourselves Jedi when our code has become so misunderstood by the very ones supposedly dedicated to its continuation? There may come a time I will wish to rejoin the Order. I can only pray it comes soon. _

_LOGGED BY: Nu, code 12470 24601_

_Kindly, Master Yoda allows him to visit the recovering boys in the Halls, as they have allowed him to visit every day, despite them knowing what he did. A man is dead because of him, for revenge; his grandson is alive because of it. He follows the unfortunately familiar route to the ward Obi-Wan is in whilst the Healers work through the effects of three weeks of beating and mistreatment, pausing before entering the ward. From the four-bed room echoes laughter, from the other Padawans who have bonded with the two Force-Blessed. Light flares, bounces up the walls with every one of Obi-Wan’s exhausted giggles; little patches of shadow dance below them, flaring out into the hall like the shadow of an explosion, always returning to shroud the foot of the beds in protection of the children in it. One of the girls, a Mon Cala named Eerin, is guessing at the shape of one of Quinlan’s shadow-images, getting louder by the minute, one of the boys – Muln, perhaps – talking over her._

_“Grandad,” croaks Obi-Wan, smiling, beckoning him into the room. The four visiting children glance at each other uncomfortably, watching him warily as he reaches into his robe’s deep pockets._

_“Do not eat too many at once,” he orders, throwing a bag of Correllian hard-boiled sweets onto the bed as he draws to a stop, sitting in the chair Quinlan vacates. The Force flushes bright with joy and gratitude, and the chorus of “Thank you Master Dooku.”_

_“How are you feeling, dear one?”_

_“Meh. Bored.”_

_Quinlan rolls his eyes. Shadows dance at his feet, like kittens, following him when he climbs over his friends to get to the sweets. They are so affectionately rambunctious, careful of Obi-Wan’s delicacy. “You nearly died.”_

_“But I didn’t,” rejoins Obi-Wan triumphantly, “thanks to you and Grandad and Master Tholme.”_

_Indeed. His grandsons pin him down, one a blinding Light and one a lurking Shadow, and he knows. He does not need to speak his resignation to them. They already know it._

_(He’s going home to a Manor empty of his grandsons  
Sometimes he sees a light and thinks it must be them   
He misses Qui.   
When the Chancellor comes aplucking at strings he has no business holding he sees, of a sudden, what is happening;  
He folds his inner Light into Darkness   
Just how Quinlan and Obi-Wan do to play  
He is playing a long trick._

_Asajj comes to him not too long after Qui dies.  
Three years is still too long.   
His grandson has another brother who he’s never met.   
She is – nice,   
Sometimes,   
And Dark but not a Sith.   
He wanted to send her away, but she saw through him.   
Nobody except Obi and Quin can do that.) _

_“You are too fond of her.”_

_Oh? “I am not,” he attempts to reassure the creature strutting through the mayhem he has caused – continues to cause – throughout the known galaxy. He needs Asajj, a very great deal, for there is nobody else who he wants to call family._

_“You have failed me for the last time,” he tells her as he knows Sideous would tell her, sending pulses of apology-love-apology-necessary down their training bond wrapped in her not-Sith darkness, clutching her Signature close to his own. Affection has never been permitted by their ‘Master’. Their bond snaps shut.  
His girl is on her own, now, but she won’t die. The darkness does her bidding, and she will order it to save her, hide her from Palpatine. Darth Sideous will want to feel his grief – the wrinkled bastard. All hope must be hidden down with the rest of his Light, with the memories of old Ky Narec who the girl loved like a father, wrapped up in the shadow of the Dark Side. After all, he is not only Fallen, but Sith. Sith do not have these soft emotions._


End file.
